By jhs5150
May 20, 2018 – A word that is used or perhaps overused to emphasize the importance of an occurrence or event. Earthquakes, UFOs, the eruption of our own Kilauea volcano, the possible reversing of Earth’s magnetic poles; I think that these things would qualify as a phenomenon whenever they occur, but in this day and age is it still possible to witness a phenomenon in the world of Rock music?
Music is like a volcano and goes through periods of stagnation before erupting once again. There have only been a few Rock acts that shook the world, in my opinion. Elvis, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Van Halen – I’ll even throw Nirvana in there. There hasn’t been too much that’s happened since the mid-90s that has had any real significance. The current period is arguably Rock’s most dire. Many have already said that Rock is dead, that everything has been done in Rock and there will be nothing in that genre’ that hasn’t been done before. Really, for better or worse, Nirvana was the last band in the Rock world to turn the listening public on its ear. They struck a nerve with their back-to-the-roots infusion of Punk, albeit it in a gloomy and decidedly un-fun sound. The Gen-Xers swallowed it up and suddenly the fun, but increasingly decadent and formulaic 80s “Hair Metal” was put to rest. What followed were the “Alternative” and “Nu-Metal” sounds played by less-talented musicians in a cookie-cutter manner that sounded basically the same, no matter who the “artist” was. Some say this was the beginning of the decline of Rock. Rock stations started to fall by the wayside several years ago. One popular Rock station in Philadelphia that competed directly for years with another Rock station a half-turn of the dial away changed its format to Sports Radio. Another, Chicago’s famous “The Loop” shut down a few weeks ago. New music hardly gets played in some parts of the country and you are left with what is basically Classic Rock. It seems that the Classic Rock stations can’t seem to play anything that isn’t 30 years old or more and could actually be facilitating this purge. “Alternative” stations either play songs from the Nirvana era or things they can’t put in other categories and so they get lumped in with the rest in this category. You now have your choice of Alternative, Classic Rock, EDM-based dance music with auto-tuned voices that sound as robotic as the equipment they were recorded on, Hip-Hop with its computerized drum beats and whiny synthesizers or Pop stations playing the same disposable, three-minute etudes for the brain-dead every thirty minutes or Sports Talk. There are too many singers that can’t sing and musicians who can hardly play, it seems. To many people, Rock is dead, dead and gone. Maybe that is true but maybe, just maybe the essence of what made rock great is being rediscovered.
Several months ago I heard a song on the radio station here that actually plays some new music to go along with the 30 year-old “classics.” I had no idea who it was but it was a Rock song like none I had heard since the 70s from that great band, Led Zeppelin. I thought to myself: “OK, they sound a lot like Zeppelin but at the same time it was amazingly good” and I wanted to hear it again. From then on, every time I heard the song I wanted to hear it again and I thought “who is this band, Greta Van Fleet?” Weird name, for sure but I’ve heard worse – The Bay City Rollers come to mind. Not long after hearing that first song – “Highway Tune”, the local radio station started playing another tune from them called “Safari Song.” To me, they had knocked the ball out of the park two times in a row with this decidedly Zeppelin-esqe sound but in a way that still sounded fresh. I couldn’t understand how they did it. It was unexplained; I couldn’t define it. To me, it truly was phenomenal.
I started to look into this band and fortunately they already had a presence on Youtube, going back five years. Being that the oldest member of this band is only twenty two and the youngest is only nineteen I found it astonishing how talented they were even five years ago. Yes, they knew they had a sound that was a bit derivative but the fact that they had the ability to capture that sound that was unique to begin with was amazing. It’s rare to hear a singer, even in a tribute band that has the power of Robert Plant. It wasn’t just the singing that sounded so familiar either. The guitarist, Jake, took what made Zeppelin (and AC/DC) great in the early days; straight-ahead guitar, and a minimum of effects into a Marshall combo amp and let that power be the engine that drives the band. He, along with the singer Jake and the bass player (Sam) are all brothers. That would seem to me to be the reason why they are so solid and tight sounding, in a way reminiscent of the Van Halen brothers. They have something intangible in their sound; you’re not sure what it is but it feels right and it seems other people feel it too.
I was so impressed I started to look into going to see this band because I had a feeling they were going to be big and I wanted to be in on the ground floor of it – and here is where it really got interesting. Everywhere I looked online tickets for them were sold out, and I mean sold out for weeks in advance. Every date on the East coast near me was sold out. Every date on the West coast and just about everywhere else – sold out. I managed to get a ticket from a reseller for three times ($130) what the original ticket price was. I didn’t care though; I usually spend anywhere from $90 to $150 on a ticket to a concert so though I have a policy against paying more than face value, for this event I was OK with it. There was something abuzz about this band; I could feel it.
Saturday night, May 12th: I decided to get there early so I could get up front and record a few songs on my newly acquired iPhone and a special stereo mic I bought for it. I always get nervous about this. The phone I could get in with no problem – everybody has one. I didn’t want to get this $100 mic confiscated or have to check it or get booted from the venue. I knew smaller venues didn’t use metal detectors and at worst you get a pat-down and a wave with a metal-detecting wand. I had hid the mic in my sock, covered with my pant leg. I got there at six o’clock and already there was a line around the corner to get in and this was an hour and a half before the venue was due to open. I parked in the lot directly in front of the venue and promptly cut the line. Still, there were probably a hundred people in front of me, waiting to get in. There was a threat of a tornado in the area, a storm looming and the temperature started dropping as soon as I got there. A cold wind started to blow and I wore only a dress shirt over a t-shirt to keep me warm. If it started to rain I was in for it. Luckily, it never did and finally, at seven-thirty they started to let people in. But wait; as I got to the front of the line there was a guy in front of me that wore long jeans with the bottoms rolled up. Suddenly, one of the event’s security people started checking the rolled up cuffs of his jeans for contraband. I thought: “damn, I’m screwed – I’ve gotta get this mic out of my sock.” Quickly, I knelt down to “tie my shoe” and took the mic out and put it in my front pocket of my outer shirt. Then as I got closer I knew they would find the mic in my pocket so I quickly moved it into the pocket of my t-shirt – thank God it had one. “Whew,” I said to myself as I just barely got past the security guard without the mic being detected. Being one of the first few inside, I walked past the merchandise table and noticed the t-shirt prices and they weren’t bad. “I’ll be back later” I thought. I got near the front but decided to hang back a little; five or six standing rows back so I could shoot video without getting nudged by over-zealous fans, which ended up happening anyway but it was bearable. I was even conscious of the event staff; some of whom were to the right of me on the other side of a partition that led to the dressing rooms. The opening act; “Dorothy” came on and I had heard one song of theirs; “Down to the Bottom” that was getting played on the local station. It’s funny how many songs have lines like “take me down…” in them these days. The Pretty Reckless nod aside, they were OK, I thought – a glorified bar band that I figured wouldn’t be around in a few years. Instinctively I knew the difference between a band like that and the headliner. Greta Van Fleet had something special the other band didn’t have. Dorothy wrapped up around 9PM. Greta Van Fleet didn’t come on for another hour but it was worth the wait. In any event, this band does things differently than other bands in that there is no announcer to proclaim their arrival, they just come on stage and start talking directly to the audience and Josh even threw a couple of roses into the crowd – instantly establishing a connection with them. This made the two parties feed off of each other and it worked. They ripped into “Highway Tune” and it was apparent they were going to come out and hit us hard. Josh’s off-the-hook vocals led the charge. He is amazingly talented; he not only has the vocals of Plant, he has the power and the range as well. This coming from a diminutive guy who dresses the part of a late 60s hippie at times but with a sound and power that belies his appearance. After “Highway Tune” they followed with a few lesser-known songs from their catalog: “Edge of Darkness”, “When the Cold Wind Blows” and “Talk on the Street.” Next up was “Flower Power” – an obvious ode to the 60s where Josh displayed his awesome vocal ability followed by “You’re the One.”
Next, they did an excellent cover of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Evil” and this is where you begin to understand why this band has struck a familiar nerve with listeners. Like Zeppelin, they are deeply rooted in the Blues. The Blues; the source of Rock and Roll’s energy and passion since Rock first exploded on the scene in the 1950s. You would never had heard Little Richard or Chuck Berry; the precursors to Elvis Presley without the influence of the Blues. The Blues’ influence ran all the way through the 60s, the 70s and the 80s until Rock started to lose its mojo and its energy when it became less blues influenced and more technology based. When you reply on mechanics and computers to make sound you invariably lose the one thing that drives it – its soul. Music became soulless and dry and it began to die – to the point we have reached in the present where it is barely breathing. To have a group of I dare say it – youngsters rediscover what most of us had forgotten, take it and carry on with it in a way that is both familiar and yet fresh is truly astounding. Every song they played reeks with the vibe of the blues while still being in the Rock vein. Guitarist Jake blasted out his guitar in a style reminiscent of the Blues players of the 50s and 60s with tip of the hat to Jimmy Page as well. Jake wasn’t flashy but displayed amazing competence on his instrument, particularly for someone so young. His slide work was amazing and I dare say he is a blues master at the tender age of 22. His brother Sam was solid, if not amazing on bass – providing the backbone of the group’s sound, along with drummer Danny Wagner. Here’s where the seemingly channeled Zeppelin also comes into play – besides the obvious vocals and at times Page-esque guitar, Sam also doubles on keyboards. On the song “Flower Power” – Sam played hints of the keyboard lines in Zeppelin’s “Your Time is Gonna Come.” In the same way John Paul Jones played bass and doubled on keyboards, Sam does the same thing. It’s uncanny how close the similarities are. If you were a very young fan, you might not have caught it and I’m not sure many did, but I did and it fit right in perfectly. They lost none of the crowd the entire time either – I’ve never seen one so enthusiastic. The girls would scream whenever Jake would get animated and walk up to the front of the stage and take a solo. He never hogged the stage, he left it to Josh to engage the crowd but when he did come to the forefront it was amazing.
Closing out their 90-minute set, they finished up with two familiar tunes – “Black Smoke Rising” (which shows that they do have the ability to create songs with originality, among others) and “Safari Song.”
No one wanted the show to end; they were that good and just about every age group was represented in the crowd – from young kids to older fans. I left there hopeful that rock has new life once again, and not a moment too soon. Like most phenomena, they could disappear like a UFO – never to be seen or heard from again, or they could be like Kilauea; after a dormant period they could erupt again and make us all remember what we so soon forgot and thus everything in their path would be renewed again. I sure hope so.
The set list can be found here: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/greta-van-fleet/2018/electric-factory-philadelphia-pa-7bed96a8.html
Videos by Yours Truly.